London mosque attack suspect wanted to kill Jeremy Corbyn

A man accused of driving a van into worshippers outside a north London mosque last summer told a court on Tuesday he had initially wanted to kill Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn or London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Asked by prosecutors if he had intended to kill Corbyn, Darren Osborne replied: “Yeah. And, if Sadiq Khan had been there, it would have been even better. It would have been like winning the lottery,” the Guardian reported. Osborne said he wanted to attack Corbyn at a march the Labour leader planned to attend in London, the BBC said.

Osborne is accused of having driven a van into a crowd outside a mosque in Finsbury Park on June 19, 2017, killing one person and leaving nine injured.

In court on Tuesday, Osborne denied that he was driving the van, insisting he had picked up another man who was behind the wheel at the time of the attack. In an earlier interview recorded in hospital straight after the attack, Osborne claimed to have acted alone, the Guardian reported.